Innocence Lost
by AdmHawthorne
Summary: Maura has to do something she never thought she would, and Jane is there to support her. Cowritten with Googlemouth. M for subject content. Rizzles.
1. Chapter 1

**Cowritten with Googlemouth**

**Characters aren't ours. They belong to Tess, Warner Brothers, Janet, and other assorted important people.**

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><p>The light streaming in through the crack in the bedroom curtains fell across a tumbled mess of bedding, pillows, a still fully clothed yet sleeping Jane Rizzoli, and a sleeping Maura Isles, who clearly had borrowed something to sleep in from Jane's closet.<p>

As the light grew brighter, the detective's eyes slowly opened, and she winced as she tried to move. Her entire body was sore, and her head hurt where the bruising on her face and neck was the worst. Her wrists were chafed and bruised, and she grunted as she rubbed at them. As quietly as she could manage, she turned onto her side to check on her friend.

She grimaced at what she saw. Her own injuries were painful, but not unusual. She was a cop; bruises, cuts, burns, and a few gunshots were expected. That was all part of the job. She knew what she had signed up for when she decided to join the force, but Maura had not. She had chosen the nice safe field of medicine, so it wasn't fair that her usually flawless skin had angry red scratches, scabbed abrasions, bandages over deeper wounds, and the dark purpling of bruises. Jane knew how those wounds would feel, and, though they were minor, she couldn't help but feel the same wounds would hurt Maura worse than herself. After all, she had more experience dealing with injuries than Maura.

The doctor was sleeping, but Jane knew that sleep had not been peaceful. Maura looked beaten down, even as she slept. She normally looked peaceful, but the stress and worry on her face had not gone away. It was still there, and Jane was concerned that it may never leave again. She shook her head.

In the honey brunette's current state of distress, her sleep became even more fitful as Jane watched. The detective's face flashed guilt as she reached over to lightly run the back of her hand across Maura's tense features.

"Maura?" she whispered, voice still husky with sleep. "Wake up. You're having a bad dream. Come on, wake up. It's okay. Everything's okay." She cooed in hush tones, trying to sooth her friend's nightmares.

"Nnnn," replied the doctor in inarticulate refusal, stuck halfway between sleeping and waking as her face crumpled in sadness. Her body twitched in a defensive manner as she tried to make her sleep-heavy limbs move to protect herself from both her dream and the state of wakefulness; both were frightening places to be.

"It's okay," Jane whispered. She moved the tangle of sheets to allow Maura to move, kicking the linens down the bed with her boot-clad foot. "You're okay. You're safe. _I__'__m_ safe. Everything's fine." Gently laying her hand on the smaller woman's shoulder, she gave it a reassuring squeeze. "Please open your eyes, Maura."

The defensive half-motions stopped, and Maura rolled towards Jane, huddling childlike into Jane's chest, eyes leaking already. It was not her eyes opening, but the changes in her rate of sniffling and the type of shivering in her body that told Jane that her battered friend had left her nightmare behind, only to fall into her waking one. Trembling fingers clutched at Jane's rumpled button down shirt, then crept around the taller woman's slender waist reluctantly, as if unsure whether she wanted to clasp or to cower within the embrace. "You were dead," came her tiny, choked voice. "You w-were dead, and I…"

"It was a bad dream. See?" Jane pulled back to look down at her friend. "I'm alive, and we're both safe. Everything's fine." Again, the detective winced as she ran a finger along the edge of the scratches on the doctor's face. "Well, relatively fine anyway." With a sigh, Jane leaned back in, pulling Maura against her. "Want me to run you a bath? Soaking in hot water helps the soreness go away."

"Warmth expands blood vessels, which stimulates blood flow to injured areas," recited the shivering woman automatically, "resulting in slight increase in pain followed by relaxation of muscles and advancing of the healing process." Maura-speak for _yes,__please_. However, her hands refused to let Jane go, still clinging to her source of comfort. "Don't leave me," she blurted at the first sign that Jane would be getting up, then in a voice only slightly more reasonable, "I'm coming with you."

Jane couldn't stop the small chuckle that escaped her throat. "Give me five minutes, okay? I need to," she gave an apologetic shrug, "use the facilities, and I'm betting you do to. It won't take me long; I promise." Moving to reach behind her, she gave a grunt as she tugged at something beneath her head. "Here," she said with a lightness in her voice that didn't reach her features, "take Pookie. He'll keep you safe until I get back." She held a small, stuffed panda above them both.

The bear was clearly aged. Its eyes held scratches, and the once white fur was greyed. One side of the little bear's head was slightly concaved where stuffing had been pulled out and never replaced when the ripped seam was repaired, and one ear was bent down flat against the bear's head from years of being held in a specific position as Jane slept. "He's great at that protection thing. Trust me."

_Trust__me_. The words had an almost magical effect on the smaller woman. Immediately she accepted Pookie and held the panda to herself, tucking that same ear up to her chin and mouth, just as Jane must have done for years, and began whispering as if it could hear her, "Giant panda. _Ailuropoda__melanoleuca_, literally cat-footed black-and-white. Mass of one- to two-hundred grams at birth. Primarily herbivorous. Common misconception that pandas are relatives of squirrels or raccoons; molecular analysis of DNA confirms full membership in the family Ursidae…" The facts seemed to ground her with their certainty, and so she kept offering them, though her voice grew quieter with the telling.

Still, once Jane had left her sight, she could not stay in place. Maura stood and, Pookie in arms, walked to stand right outside the bathroom, as close as she dared get to her real comfort and protection.

It took a few minutes for Jane to take care of business and brush her teeth. After running a brush through her mess of hair, she turned to open the bathroom door as she started to unbutton her hopelessly wrinkled shirt. The last thing she expected to see were Maura and Pookie standing right outside the bathroom.

"Maura!" Jane's voice cracked in surprise. "God, you scared the crap out of me." Her shirt hung open, revealing a white tank. Quickly reaching out, she placed a hand on her friend's shoulder. "Is everything okay? Do you need something? I was about to come get you so you could do your thing while I made us a quick breakfast."

Jane's yelp, fortunately, didn't startle Maura. In fact, the sight of her caused some of the tension to leave Maura's hunched shoulders. "I didn't want to just walk in while you were indecent," she explained weakly, but the implication was clear; she _had_ wanted to be closer to the lanky woman standing in front of her. "And, and I don't want you to be in there while I'm using the facilities, but…" Her voice trailed off as she glanced inside, then back up at her friend. "After that, will you come back in? I just, I don't… Please?"

"Yeah, sure," Jane nodded. "Why don't you go do your thing, and I'm going to change out of my clothes from yesterday. Then we can eat, and I'll run you a bath, okay?" Ducking her head down to meet the smaller woman's eyes, she gave a weak smile. "I'm not going to be far away, and Pookie knows how to look the other way when you're," she smirked, "indecent."

"You can shower," the doctor allowed, though clearly the notion of being separated for longer was not a pleasant one. "I'll make breakfast, and you can shower. I'll be okay if I can hear you moving, I think. And," she added after a moment's thought, "Pookie can't look the other way, but it doesn't matter. Because he's inanimate." With that reassurance, Maura darted into the bathroom for the most abbreviated morning routine she had probably ever conducted and then scuttling back out to the kitchen to do as promised.


	2. Chapter 2

A short time later, Jane was clean and sitting at her kitchen counter across from the honey brunette as they finished breakfast. "You know," she said between the last bites of her eggs, "Pookie is a horrible swimmer. Did I mention that? You should probably let him take a rest somewhere when you take a bath." She looked at the bear still clutched in the small, delicate hands of the doctor. "How about we go run your bath, and, while you're getting in, I take Pookie back to the bedroom and tuck him in? That way, he'll be in the bed waiting for us when you get out." She stood, moving to pick up the remnants of their breakfast. "Sound good?"

Grateful for the care being shown, Maura moved more quickly to clear the dishes and begin the washing up. "Okay," she agreed hesitantly, having noticed the 'us' that would be heading back to bed. It was another point of thoughtful assurance. Before Jane could leave the room, however, she had to confirm, "But then you'll come back in? I promise I'll put some bubbles. Or close the… well, no, the curtain is clear. But I'll put bubbles if you want." _Don't__leave__me__alone_, the silent plea reiterated.

"I planned on it," Jane stated as she headed to the bedroom, Pookie in tow.

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><p>Maura's body had begun to relax in the warm, bubble filled water. Her skin had turned pink from the heat. At least, what wasn't bruised or scraped had turned pink. Those other places were still startling shades of mottled purple.<p>

"Maura, when was the last time you washed your hair?" Uncurling her legs, Jane scooted over to sit closer to the side of the tub. "I think I see specks of paint from the… well, yellow specks of paint in your hair. We should wash it." She reached up to pull one of the offending chips from the honey brunet hair. "I mean, I've always thought you'd look good with slightly blonder hair, but yellow is just a little much." She winked as she held the small paint chip eye level for the other woman to see.

"Yesterday," the fair-completed woman started to say, then corrected herself softly. "No, the day before. Before the… The day before we… I don't know. What day is it?" Not even thirty-six hours had passed since the beginning of the ordeal she could not even name, barely ten hours since they had gotten free of the situation, barely two since being released from questioning and paperwork. Too ashamed to continue, the woman simply scooted down in the tub until only her face in front of her ears was visible.

There had been no bubble bath at Jane's place, not like her own, and so the bubbles surrounding and covering her came from shampoo in the first place. She had up-ended her entire travel-sized bottle into the bathwater. Her hair, including its fine grit of dust and paint chips, floated atop the water for a while before gradually sinking. Almost a full minute later, she remembered that she might need to take more action than that, and halfheartedly raised her hands to agitate the tendrils. Gradually, however, she began to increase her speed, having found that once she began the process of ridding herself of debris, she was disgusted by even the finest traces of it. "God, I'm so gritty and gross and disgusting!" she exploded.

"Never disgusting," Jane chided lightly as she rose up onto her knees and took over washing out the honey brunette's hair, shooing the other woman's hands away. Maura's hands sank uselessly back into the water to rest at her sides; it helped, a little, not to have the hand-shaped bruises directly visible anymore. Jane continued to talk as she worked, "Or gross for that matter. Well," she said as she pretended to half consider it, "except for that time you decided to start flirting with Tommy. _That_ was pretty gross. Now that I think about it, that time you wanted to sleep with Giovanni was pretty _disgusting_, too." The commentary caused Maura to pout a little, but at least it was associated with something other than the events of the day before. It was a good distraction.

Jane's fingers gently worked through the tangles as she kept her eyes on what she was doing, and eventually the pout was replaced by utter trust as the soaking woman clung with her eyes as she had earlier clutched with her hands. "This water is too soapy, Maura. We'll never get all the soap out of your hair." The frown on the detective's face was starting to become a permanent fixture. "I don't know how to make this work." She kept running her fingers through the doctor's hair as she spoke, distress creeping into her voice. "You probably need to take a shower to wash off all the soap and get your hair clean, and I can't stay in here with you while you do that. I mean, you're… well, the shower curtain is clear, you know?"

Still and quiet, Maura considered what her friend was saying, but it took her a few seconds - much longer than usual - to make the connections between Jane's words and the practical outcome thereof. "You're leaving?" she said, not quite whining, but not far from it either.

"Well, I," Jane grunted in frustration, clearly torn about what to do. "Maura, I can't take a shower with you. Besides," she added to try to lighten the blow, "I'll just be just down the hall. Pookie and I'll be in bed waiting for you. We'll get it warm for you." She winced at the pained look on the other woman's face. "How's that?"

Maura lowered her eyes to the water's surface to save her friend from the bulk of her reaction. It didn't help much. Her voice pinched itself off, vowels strangling. "I understand. I don't want to look at me, either." Then she sat, waiting to be left alone.

"What? No!" Jane sat back on her heels to look at the other woman. "Maura, no." She shook her head, voice unintentionally harsh. "That _is__not_ what I'm saying. I'm saying that I don't," she stopped talking for a moment, and then tried again. "It's not that I don't want," again she stopped. "God damn it, Maura." Jane pushed herself to the end of the tub that held the stopper, reached in, and pulled the plug. "Nothing I can say here," she stated as the water drained, "will sound right. I _was_ going to say that I don't want to see you naked, but that sounds like I don't want to see you naked because you're scraped up and bruised, which is wrong." Anger was starting to seep into her voice.

Maura cringed downward and away from the obvious anger building in her friend. She lifted her knees above the water level, pulling them to her chest as the water slowly drained away.

"Then, if I tried it another way, it makes it sound like I don't want to see you naked, period, which is… I'm not going there right now. So," Jane continued on, not letting Maura have the chance to get a word in edgewise, "screw it. You're beautiful, and the bruises and stuff will go away. I mean, just look at my ugly mug. I look like I went ten rounds with Mike Tyson. We'll both heal," she sighed, voice finally going soft again. "eventually." She averted her eyes, staring at the floor as the water started to lower enough to leave Maura uncovered. "Now take a shower, okay?"

One sniffle, and then Maura hesitantly rose to her feet, leery of slipping but no longer of being abandoned. The water turned on before she remembered to pull the curtain far enough to shield the bath mat and person sitting on it from splatter. She quickly pulled back to block the rest of the water. Behind the frosted clear plastic, her peach-colored form went about the motions of ridding her hair and body of suds, then stood while the water steamed hotter to turn her pink again. The water shut off, and she pulled the curtain aside again, leaning out to tug the towel from its hook, the same one Jane had used, and dry herself before bending over to lay the towel over her head, giving it a bit of a twist. "Thank you," she said in a small voice as she rose, the towel making an impromptu turban to keep her wet hair from dribbling. Steadfastly, she kept her eyes away from her formerly second-best friend, the mirror, not wanting to see the overall effects of the previous day and a half.

From her spot on the floor beside the tub, Jane gave a grunt in response before standing to grab her terry cloth bathrobe from its place on the door. "You'll be warmer if you put this on." She held the robe up, head turned to give Maura privacy. "I'll dig out something else for you to wear when we get back to the bedroom. For whatever reason, there's a clean pair of your underwear in the nightstand on your side of the bed. I think they got mixed in my wash the last time we changed here after yoga." She led them to the bedroom. She carefully set Maura down on the bed before pulling out said underwear and then turning to her chest of drawers to dig through it for something for Maura to wear. "This would be easier if you'd wear blends," she muttered.

Smirking, she looked up from the chest. "Looks like you're stuck with my Batman t-shirt." She pulled it out and held it up. "It's 100% cotton, and," she smirked as she held up another piece of clothing, "it has a matching set of shorts. I know how you feel about things that match." Something close to amusement passed across her face. "You know, Batman was a rich guy who dressed up in tights and fought crime at night." She actually gave a snort. "Yeah, that's about right. You should totally wear this." She held the shirt and shorts out toward the doctor.

Mutely Maura took the garments, giving a look of gratitude before turning away to pull on the underthings and shorts while preserving the sight-barrier Jane seemed so much to need. When she had doffed the robe and replaced it with the T-shirt, she turned back around and stood with a look of guilt, as if apologizing for the fact that they didn't quite fit her in the same way they fit Jane. "If they stretch out," she offered, "I'll replace them. Thank you." Still, apology or none, distracted and bruised or not, the woman could really work the look of what essentially amounted to adult Underoos. "And for…" Her right hand waved listlessly in a gesture meant to evoke some all-encompassing thing. "Everything."

"Don't worry about it," Jane said by way of covering everything Maura had just said. "Besides," her voice became brittle sounding as she walked over to her side of the bed, "it's the least I can do, considering." She sat down, slowly sliding her legs under the covers. Hands in her lap and eyes on her hands, she allowed a silence to fill the room for a moment before she spoke. "I'm so sorry, Maura."

Halfway into the bed herself, Maura paused at Jane's apology, then continued lifting the blankets and sitting down. She didn't swing her legs over, or face her friend, just remained turned to the wall. Her posture was stiff, probably due to the bruising she had sustained on her mid and lower back from various impacts. "You didn't do this," she said by way of absolving Jane of responsibility. "They did. I just wish I could have _used_ my mind as well as I've always thought I could. I think I'm an intelligent person, or at least I thought so, but now I can't really be sure, can I? If I were, I could have found another solution. I could have planned better, or faster, and not…"

"There was no way out," Jane stopped her, eyes not moving from her hands. "I was cuffed, gagged," she shook her head, "half conscious." One hand reached up to rub gently across the bruises on her face. "People like that, they only know one way to live." She finally looked over to the other woman. "Kill or be killed." She moved her hand from her face to Maura's arm. "I'm just sorry I got you involved. You should never have been there. I keep putting you in these situations. First Hoyt, now this." She swallowed passed the lump in her throat. "I'm so sorry, Maura. This is all my fault. I should have made you stay at the station."

"And then what?" Maura asked quietly. "I hate what I did, Jane, and I know it was a failure of imagination on my part that made it… necessary." The words were distasteful in her mouth, and she prevented herself from spitting them only by lifelong habit of restraint. "But if you'd been alone there, then what? Who would have done it? Look at the state of us."

She turned to lay the full weight of her gaze on the woman who had become closer to her than she imagined even a sibling could be, and one by one pointed to each of the visible bruises, cuts, and scrapes on herself. Hand-shaped purple and brown on one wrist and at her throat. Black eye, swollen at the edge, and a lip that puffed unnaturally at one side. There were scrapes on her chin and cheek where a ring-wearing fist had grazed her and where a concrete pillar had stopped her from falling all the way to the ground. Bruised, scraped knees. Fist and boot imprints on her abdomen, legs, and one hip. A stab wound to her upper arm; it had been stitched together, and had stung in the bath, not that she'd cared overly much by then.

"You're worse than I am," the physician pointed out. "You fought harder, for longer, and they… God, I hate what they did to you. But if you'd been there alone, what do you think would have happened to you? Or if I'd been there alone? Jane, nothing _you_ did was regrettable. What _I_ did was reprehensible."

Slowly shaking her head, Jane spoke quietly but with firm conviction. "No, what _you_ did was necessary. What _I_ did was stupid. I should have scouted the parking garage before we stepped foot outside the car. I should have called for backup the moment my gut told me something was off about the meeting. I should have known better. Every time I go in thinking I got it when I don't have the backup lined up, something like this happens. I need to _think_ before I do. If I'd _thought_, then I could have protected you; I could have kept you from doing the _one_ thing you never wanted to do. God," she pulled back, placing her face in her hands and muffling her voice. "Maura, I am _so_ sorry." She took in a deep breath. "I'm supposed to defend _you_. I'm so sorry I failed you like this."

"You didn't," said Maura with feeling, following Jane's movement until she caught up. "You've never failed me. Over and over, you save me. I just wish I could do that for you without having to resort to…" She faltered at the doorstep of actually naming it, giving it power, and diverted her thoughts into something safer. "It's not up to me, to decide things like that. Who gets justice, what that justice should entail, who lives or dies. Those aren't up to me. It's my role to determine how, not what or why. That's what _you_ do. This is _your_ job, Jane, because you're capable of assessing situations and people in an instant and knowing what's necessary. What's right. I don't know if I did right or wrong today."

"If I had been in your place," Jane stated quietly, pulling her hands down to make eye contact with the doctor, "I wouldn't have done a thing differently. You did the right thing today, Maura." She reached out again to take Maura's hand in her own. "I know you don't believe me when I say it, and I know you well enough to know that you'll probably analyze the situation over and over again until you've gone through every possibility scenario you can come up with, but, I'm telling you, you did the right thing." She sighed heavily, feeling the weight of everything settling on her shoulders. "Sometimes, what you did really is the only way."

"Are you sure?" Maura asked, worry and trust equally visible in her features. She scooted closer, even nudging Pookie the Panda to the head of the bed, out from between them, so that she could leech reassurance and security from her friend's very body. "Because the only thing I think was right about it was that you're okay. That's all I wanted, and it's worth it, but I just feel so…" Again she lapsed silent, unable to find adequate language to describe the sensation of that precipice over which she had fallen today. Her fingers tightened over Jane's as if to pull herself back up over that invisible ledge again, even as she knew it was a futile attempt.

"Empty." Jane finished it for her. She nodded, whispering quietly, "I know." Slipping an around Maura's shoulders, she pulled the other woman closer. "Believe me, I know." She shut her eyes, allowing herself a brief moment to remember the times she'd had to do the same thing; the memories were just as vivid now as when they'd happened. "They would have killed you once they were done with me," she whispered into the silence of the room. "Those men had no soul, Maura… no mercy. It doesn't make it any easier, but what you did was right. It was self-defense. No one will think otherwise." She reached with her free hand to take Maura's again. "We'll get through this."

Maura felt a relief, a succumbing to gravity, as she cleaved to the strength and warmth of Jane, to the safety of being told she was not an abominable creature. Nonetheless, she held herself back from that last little scrap of comfort. "I know they would have killed me," she sighed before admitting, "but I wouldn't let my biological father kill for my sake, so what makes you think I would do it myself?" Patrick Doyle, her birth father, had specifically requested the name of the man who could threaten Maura's safety, and his ethical, scrupulous daughter had not been willing to give it to him, not even letting a murder kill to defend her. "It wasn't self-defense. I don't think I'd have been able to move or think at all, if that were the case."

"You think I killed Hoyt to save myself?" The words were out of Jane's mouth before she could stop them. Once out, however, she decided not to back down from them. "If you did, you need to rethink what happened."

Maura shook her head, lifting wide eyes towards her best friend's face once more. "I know you didn't. That's why last night I… That's what I was thinking about."

"Okay then," dark brown eyes ran over the smaller woman's face, searching for something. "We've both done some things to keep each other safe that we wouldn't have done normally, and, honestly, I'd do it again in a heartbeat." She frowned. "I wish I had something I could tell you that would make it all better, Maura. I really do. But, I know there's nothing anyone could say that would fix it." Eyes softening, she tried to pull her face from the frown it seemed to want to stay in. "You know I don't love or care about you any less after what happened. And, hey," she tried to smirk, "now you have street cred. That's got to count for something, right?"

"No," replied the smaller woman truthfully. "It does help that you're here to try to make me feel better about it. I think it will work, eventually. Just right now, I think I need," she stopped, unsure of what it was that was required, let alone how to ask for it. She'd always been bad at asking. Maura took a long, deep, cleansing breath and let it out with a controlled exhale. "I need you."

"You've got me," Jane responded quietly. "You always have me." Urging Maura to scoot down, she managed to get them both settled on the bed so they could rest. "Let's try to get some sleep." With a gentleness she normally didn't show, the detective wrapped them both in a bed sheets and held Maura until they drifted to sleep.


	3. Chapter 3

"How's she doing?" Frankie handed a full mug of coffee to his sister.

"How do you think?" She gratefully took the mug before settling on one of the chairs at her counter. "I woke up about an hour ago, and she hasn't moved. I can't decide if she's tired, depressed, or both."

He nodded. "Maura wasn't trained like we were."

"Frankie, you and I both know that nothing gets you ready for that." She set the mug down, staring into the milky brown liquid. "Thanks for bringing us dinner."

"Sure thing. Ma said she had to work, so I figured you could use the help. Besides, I wanted to see how you two were doing." He narrowed his eyes as he took in his sister's bruised and battered appearance. "They really did a number on you, didn't they?"

Jane shrugged. "I've had worse."

"Jane."

"Yeah, okay, it sucked, and, if Maura hadn't been there," she shook her head. "Some days, it's just better to stay in bed."

"I know what you mean." He pulled up a chair on the opposite side of the counter. "What happened anyway?"

Jane was quiet for a moment. "Our contact for the Ryan case called me and said he had something new to give us, but he wanted me to meet him in a neutral place. When he suggested the parking garage at the mall, I figured it'd be safe, so I agreed to meet him there. When the call came in, Maura happened to be with me." At her brother's mock shocked face, she rolled her eyes but kept talking. "Korsak and Frost were out on a lead, and Maura wanted to come so we could go to lunch afterward. I didn't really have a reason to tell her no, so she went."

Her voice cracked as she spoke, "We got there, and there weren't a lot of cars on the level he wanted to meet. I thought something was up, you know? So, I called Korsak and had to leave him a voice mail. Maura shot a text to Frost. I drove around a couple of times, but I didn't see anything off, so we parked and got out." She gave a humorless chuckle. "We should have stayed in the car."

"You didn't know, sis," Frankie said quietly.

"Yeah, well, I should have known, Frankie. It's my job to know." She waved her hand in the air to brush off whatever it was he was about to say. "Anyway, we got out of the car, and, as soon as we did, we were ambushed. They tied us up. Bastards used my own cuffs on me." She looked down at her bruised and cut wrists. "I couldn't see what they were doing to Maura, but I could hear her trying to scream around her gag. I tried to fight them off, but it's hard to do when you're cuffed and gagged."

She leaned back in her chair, taking in a deep breath. "They knocked us out. Next thing I know, I'm tied to a chair in the parking garage, and Maura is gagged and tied to another one across from me. She looks like hell, and I don't think I've ever seen her that pissed off… or scared." Again, she shook her head. "Anyway, these two guys are standing there waiting. One of them had my gun stuck in the back of his pants. The other one had a night stick. They ungag me and start asking me all kinds of shit that I'm not going to tell them. I see one of the guys keeps eye Maura, so I keep talking to keep them focused on me because I figure Korsak and Frost will make it sooner or later."

"Calvary's always late," Frankie muttered.

Jane shrugged. "They beat the holy hell out of me for a few minutes with the club after I said one of them had nice manboobs. But, I only said it because they were about to turn on Maura. Anyway, after beating the shit out of me for that, the guy with my gun says that they've messed with us long enough. So, the one with the big stick pulls out a gun." She stopped talking, her eyes going cold. "There was nothing I could do, Frankie. They were both armed. We were both tied up. There was a weapon trained on me, and the only thing I could do was talk, keep their attention off Maura."

"You did what you could," he offered.

"I didn't do enough," she spat back. "Somehow, Maura managed to get free. It was like watching something in slow motion, you know? She gets free and yanks my gun out of the back of the guy's pants. She's got it pointed at them, holding it like I taught her. They both turn on her. They guy with the gun has his weapon raised..." She stopped again, closing her eyes as she relived it all. "She did what she had to do."

"You both did." Frankie cleared his throat a few times. "The other guy's talking. Did Korsak tell you?"

"No. I haven't talked to anyone since we were released from the hospital. I'm glad Frost took our statements there. I don't think Maura could relive that again." She ran a hand through her hair. "Frankie, what am I going to do?"

He shook his head, clearly confused by the question. "What do you mean?"

"This is all my fault. If she hadn't been with me…"

"You'd be dead." He'd said the one thing neither woman had managed to actually say. "If you ask me, it's a blessing she was there. You two are tough; you'll be alright." He checked his watch. "Crap, I have to go back; my break is almost over. If you two need anything, you call, okay?"

"Yeah, okay." Jane walked him to the door. "Frankie," she stopped him with a hand to his arm.

The uncertain tone in his sister's voice caught his attention. "Yeah?"

"Why do you think she did it?"

He frowned at his oldest sibling. "Why did you kill Hoyt?"

"To protect Maura." She looked at him as if he'd asked an undeniably idiotic question.

"Why'd you want to do that?" He asked in an even tone.

"Because I love her." Again, she gave him the same look.

"There you go. I have to go. Love you, sis." With that, he left, shutting the door behind him.

"Oh man," Jane muttered to herself. "Why does life have to be so freaking complicated?" Turning to the bedroom, she rolled her eyes skyward. "Can you make just _one_ thing in my life easy?" She gestured upward, toward the ceiling. Rolling her eyes before she started toward her bedroom she find Maura watching her from the doorway of her room. "Maura, did I wake you up? I'm sorry." She nodded to the kitchen. "Frankie came over to drop off dinner. Leftovers from Ma, but it's something if you're hungry."

The other woman shook her head; caramel-colored hair shaking gently back and forth. Maura had taken some obvious, and mostly successful, steps towards reassembling the armor she usually wore. Though she had slept on wet hair, she had dampened it again, brushed it smooth, and then clipped it back with a comb. Her face was washed, moisturized, but she hadn't bothered with the tinted foundation that she normally used to cover her light nutmeg freckles. Her full lips shone with a lightly tinted moisturizer, but she hadn't bothered with eye makeup, a mute admission that she fully expected to cry again at some point during the day.

Still, the effort had been made to reassemble what Maura knew of herself and what she wanted other people to see of her. The Batman t-shirt and boy shorts hardly put a dint in the effect. In fact, she looked just like a woman _should_ look when waking up at Stately Wayne Manor and wanting morning coffee more than she wanted to scandalize the loyal Alfred: barely clothed, nearly well rested, slightly unsettled from all the Bat-gadgets, and almost entirely ignorant of the image of relaxed sensuality that she projected.

"I'm sorry I complicated you," she said, ignoring the mention of food as she took a step to the side of the doorway, unsure of whether Jane would want to enter or if the detective would want her to leave the safety of its confines and come out into the apartment. "And, and, and I'm sorry I couldn't get free faster. The ties were tight, and the nail in the chair kept poking my wrist." Hence the tiny puncture wounds, uncomfortably close to the veins and arteries in her wrists. She'd had to keep risking puncturing them in order to get the zip ties to eventually part and let her loose.

Jane quickly made her way to the bedroom's doorway. "First of all," she said gently as she stopped in the frame, leaning against it and facing the smaller woman, "you don't complicate my life. _Ma_ complicates my life. _Frankie_ complicates my life. God knows _Tommy_ complicates," she stopped, grunted, snorted, and started again, "_My__family_complicates my life. You don't. You are probably the only stable and undemanding person _in_ my life, so don't start thinking you're a burden. You're not."

She reached out to place a hand on Maura's arm. "Second of all, I was talking to God. So, stop eavesdropping." She winked, smirking just slightly. "Third of all," she ran her hand down the doctor's arm to one hand. Bringing Maura's hand up to eye-level, she took her first real look at the wounds there, "God, Maura, you could have killed yourself." With her free hand, she ran her fingers lightly around the wounds.

"By action or by inaction," Maura agreed softly.

Wordlessly, the tall, lanky woman pulled her friend to her, wrapping her arms around the smaller woman. "Thank you," She whispered, voice cracking with the unspoken fear her new realization of the previous night's events had just left.

"I thought I'd rather be killed for trying than for just sitting there and feeling helpless while you were…" Maura's throat caught on the words. "I thought, 'What would Jane do if that man was beating me with a nightstick and threatening to kill me?' So that's what I did."

"And you call _me_ brave," Jane mumbled into honey brunette hair. She pulled back, keeping her hands on the other woman's shoulders as she locked gazes. "You're amazing, Maura. I mean that. God, I can't even... what would I do without you?" She shook her head at the thought.

"Well," Maura replied offhandedly, not quite paying attention to what was actually being said aloud, "you might wear that one shirt that makes your skin look sickly and yellow. More often, I mean." But the words weren't the important thing. The important thing was her head tipping forward to finally rest on Jane's shoulder and the faint sigh of relief as she let herself relax into that position. The next words were more important. "I'm a killer, Jane. I'm not a murderer, but I'm a killer."

"Bullshit," Jane countered as she again pulled Maura to her. "You're a hero and a protector. You're not a killer. Killers are people who go out and kill without remorse. You," she said with certainty, "are not a killer, and, you're right, you're not a murderer either. You're a hero," she sighed, letting her hands run patterns across Maura's back as she spoke. "You're _my_ hero."

Another sigh, this one lighter and shorter, ghosted across Jane's neck. "I'm rested," Maura said after a long moment as she slipped a hand around Jane's waist. "I didn't sleep a lot, but I rested, and I thought." Her other hand lifted to eye-level again, allowing them both to again see the damage there. "I _am_a killer, Jane. A killer is someone who kills, and I did kill. I have that man's life on my hands."

Her other hand traced up Jane's spine, mirroring the other woman's motions on her own back. "But after thinking through all the events and working through the logistics of any other choices I could have made, anything I could have done differently, I can't say that I could have had any other moment, any other action, that would have saved him. And almost anything else I could have done would have compromised your chances of survival, and mine. I took one life, and preserved two. Mathematically… Well. I can't put it down to mathematics. All I can say is that now that I've done what I wanted to do then - think harder, plan better, and make more informed choices - _now_ I can say that I think the choice was the best one that was available to me. It's still going to weigh on me, but I will learn to live with it."

"Sometimes it's the best you can do," Jane agreed, voice sounding heavy.


	4. Chapter 4

They stood in the doorframe for a bit longer, not wanting to pull away and not sure where they'd go if they did. Finally, after the silence settled into something less stressed, Jane commented in an almost offhanded way, "You're really not going to say anything about me talking to God? You normally at least make a face when I start blaming Him for my complicated life." She lightly teased as she finally let the doctor go and headed toward the kitchen. "While you're thinking of a comeback, let's go warm up the leftovers." She winked before walking away.

Unsupported and slightly disoriented, Maura swayed in place. "Leftovers," she murmured in a slightly dazed voice. It wasn't until Jane had already punched START on the microwave that Maura blinked owlishly, rested her flat-spread hands on the countertop to steady her stance, and came back with a response. "I don't know all of what you said to God," she said, sounding a little more put together than just moments before, "but I knew the conversation wasn't meant for me to overhear, so I don't need to ask. Just as I wasn't meant to overhear what you said to Frankie."

Jane stopped moving around the kitchen and turned to the other woman. "But you _did_ hear it? Maura," she moved to the counter where the honey brunette was steadying herself, "did you hear that whole thing? God, I'm so sorry. Frankie wanted to know happened, and I figured that, with you asleep, it'd be okay to tell him. I never meant for you to hear that and have to relive it all over again." She crossed her arms, frowning at the thought that she'd forced her friend to once again relive the night before. "Are you okay with me telling him?"

"I'm glad you told him," came the response after a long moment's thought as Maura, still facing the countertop and away from Jane, straightened her spine, then let it relax again. "Frankie deserves to know as a police officer and as your brother. This was your experience, and you're allowed to share whatever you need to share if it helps you process. I would do the same thing." One fingernail picked idly at a speck on the countertop.

She got the bit loose and flicked it into the sink, then was still for a moment before turning around. "Hearing it from your viewpoint is… helpful. That is to say, I know in my mind what happened, and what all the alternatives are, but I don't feel it yet. It still feels like I failed to save all the lives that I should have saved, that I should have tried harder, thought faster, acted faster. But knowing that you saw it the way you did may help me feel a little better, a little sooner than I otherwise might."

"Listen," Jane walked to the sink to run the water and wash the speck down the drain, "things are going to be hard for a while, but it'll get better." She turned back around with a wet dishcloth in her hand. "Honestly, I'm still trying to deal with Hoyt, and that bastard terrorized me and everyone I loved for years. You'd think I'd be okay with what I did, but," she shrugged and walked back to the counter to reach around Maura and wiped at it again. "When I say I get it, I really do get it, and I want you to know," she stepped back to toss the cloth back into the sink, "that I'm here for you. Whatever you need, I'll figure out a way to give it to you. Whatever you want, okay? Even if that means you want to spend a few nights here or you want me to spend some time in your guest room." She gave a weak smirk. "You know I mean it if I'm willing to deal with Ma for longer than a day."

Accepting the humor for what it was, Maura offered a diluted smile back. "May I stay today with you? Tonight maybe I should try to sleep on my own. I'll have to do it eventually, and goodness knows I've had enough practice to be good at it. Usually. And, and, and I can't just keep wearing your clothes," she plucked at the shoulder of the Batman t-shirt for emphasis. "I'll stretch them all out and then you won't have anything to wear."

"I don't know," the detective said with a small measure of consideration in her voice as she began to plate the leftovers, "I think you look better in that getup than I do, honestly." She was focused on the food more than the other woman, and the smile that graced her lips as she made the comment happened without her realizing it was there. "But, I get what you're saying. I'm sure you miss your hundred dollar PJs anyway." She brought the plates to her counter, setting them down, and then going for glasses. "But, if you need me, call me. I mean it," she filled the glasses with ice and water. "Any time, day or night, and I'll be there." Setting the glasses down, she made a motion with her head for Maura to sit down and join her. "I don't want you to feel like you're alone in this. You're not. I'm here, okay?"

With a wistful backward glance at the sofa, Maura accepted both the water and the nonverbal suggestion and seated herself at the counter with Jane instead. "I know you are, and I'm so grateful. Knowing now what you must have been going through, I wish I'd been even more there for you after Hoyt. I am now, though. Such as I am. I guess," she paused, looking rueful, "I guess this is something else we share now. I'd rather share your love of baseball, to be honest, but at least I have you, and you have me, and we can help each other better for it."

Jane gave a snort. "What _don__'__t_ we share these days?" She poked at the food on her plate as she thought about it. "Ma's practically adopted you, and I think you've pretty much adopted my family. We work at the same place. We have most of the same friends. We like the same kind of latte," she glanced over to the doctor. "Thank you for that, by the way. As if I don't have enough calories I crave, I think the pumpkin spice latte pretty much covers whatever I might be missing." She smiled to show that she was teasing, and went back to poking at her food. "We even share the same days off, and," she frowned, her free hand going to rub at her neck, "the same scars in some spots. You know," she set her fork down and looked up at the honey brunette, "I'm with you. I think I'd rather share your love of shopping than this, and, before you ask me and get all excited, I still refuse to voluntarily go shopping. I don't know what you get out of running around to a hundred different stores just to find one pair of shoes." She shook her head as she glanced back to her plate. "I don't think I'm really hungry."

"Neither am I," Maura admitted as she picked up the fork to cut a bite of toad-in-a-hole, the name of which had once caused her to make a face as if she were actually being offered toad, instead of an egg fried inside a piece of toast. "But we both have to eat, or we'll feel worse than we need to feel. I'd rather just feel bad about the things that matter than have to spare some bad feelings for my stomach." She took the bite, then another, never even noticing that it completely lacked the salt and pepper she usually insisted were necessary for any egg product. When the food was half gone, she sighed and pushed the plate away. "Damn it," she swore, annoyance clearly in her voice, and the very sound of word coming out of _her_ mouth was more obscene than any construction workers' catcalls.

"What?" Jane's head whipped up to look at the other woman. "Did you just swear?"

"It was surprisingly satisfying," Maura admitted guiltily, "but it didn't help the situation."

Clearly confused, the detective stopped eating and just stared at her friend. "I don't know whether to be shocked you just said 'damn it' or worried that you did, and," she raised an eyebrow, "what situation? If you mean the thing we've been talking about, that's just going to take time. Food doesn't help with that, trust me. If you mean the fact you're still wearing my Batman stuff, I could call Ma to bring you something to wear. I mean, it _is_100% cotton, so I figured it'd be okay."

Maura's head was shaking, dismissing all of the above. "No, none of that. I mean, the situation is part of it…" She paused, started to speak, stopped again, then huffed in frustration. "It's just going to be uncomfortable. It happens every time I'm terrified, and I think I know what causes it, and I'll just deal with it until it goes away." Moving less listlessly and with a certain amount of irritation evident in her posture and deportment, the shorter woman stood and picked up her plate, gestured towards Jane's to see if it was ready to be cleared, and started in with the washing up. "Every time," she muttered again for good measure, gritting her teeth. Only once she'd plunged her soapy plate under the warm running water did she take a moment for one of those deep, cleansing breaths that their yoga instructor loved so much. "It's fine," she said with determination: it wasn't, but it would be. "At any rate, it's not something you should worry about."

"Too late," Jane said as she stepped to rinse and dry. "You're going to have to tell me now, or I'm just going to keep bugging you until you do." She pulled out a towel to dry the dishes. "You know how this works. Spill it."

Again the other woman made a face as she handed over the plate. "Do I have to? It's really nothing I can't live with. I have before. It's irritating, embarrassing, but not dangerous or worthy of medical concern. It's just a… thing. It's just what happens when someone faces something that frightens them. Right?" She glanced up, looking faintly pinker around the edges, almost but not quite shy. "You probably have the same thing. You're just better at handling it, because in your life it happens so much more often. Or maybe you're completely inured to it by now. That would make sense, since adrenalin and the other hormonal reactions to fear are-"

"Maura," with a roll of her eyes, Jane plucked the last clean dish from the other woman's hands, rinsed, and dried it. "Really? Just tell me. You know I'm not going to judge you. Besides, if it's something you're having issues with and it's something you think I deal with better, maybe I can help?" She put away the final dish and tossed the towel onto the counter by the sink. "Well? What is it?"


	5. Chapter 5

It was a reasonable request, but Maura Isles was incapable of just coming right out with much of anything, especially when flustered. She began to spill technical information concerning hormones associated with fear, terror, danger to one's very life, perceived threats such as seeing one's primary source of emotional support threatened with actual death, the physical exertions that had been demanded of her, and the like.

She trailed away, realizing that she hadn't been interrupted for once, and cast a swift glance upward to see if Jane was following her thought process. Often her best friend simply _knew_ things, understood her without having to be told. The look she got, however, suggested that Jane was as confused as she was, and so Maura continued on, hoping that just by talking it out, she would either explain it sufficiently for both of them to begin to understand, or that the amount of detail would obscure the meaning and protect Maura. "…And then afterward, when I finally knew we were safe again, there was such a rush of relief, and you were there to help me. I know it doesn't look like it, but you _have_helped me. You've been steady and comforting, even though I know you can't feel much better than I do right now, and I'm finding myself… um… confused about how I feel about that."

"But please," she concluded, waving it away as she turned from the sink, "don't worry about it. It will eventually become somewhat less distracting. I guess you never fully get over the feelings and sensations of… being grateful for your life."

"Yeah," Jane said as she studied the woman in front of her. "That's not," she shook her head, pulling up a hand to chew on her thumbnail as she tried to process everything that was just dumped on her. "Maura, are you saying you… hmmm," she continued to chew and think.

After a moment of deep thought and silence, the detective narrowed her eyes as she pulled her hand away from her mouth. "You sure you didn't feel that way before all this crap happened?"

"That's why I'm confused," Maura said as she ducked her head, attempting to find something else to focus on. Something like Jo Friday, nudging her favorite tennis ball towards the wall to make it bounce back towards herself in a half-hearted game of solo soccer. "With everything that has occurred within the past day and a half," she estimated, a sure sign of agitation, "I'm finding it hard to access accurate memories of the way I felt before. All I can feel right now is the way I feel right now, and it's fairly sweeping. It _feels_ real, but I'm not good at understanding and interpreting emotions even at the best of times, so I don't know if I can depend on my current perceptions of my emotional state. It's like I've been injected with some sort of mind-altering, controlled substance and all I can think about is… unrealistic things. I am _not_ in a rational state, Jane."

The dark haired woman gave a noncommittal grunt. "Do you remember," she said in what seemed an abrupt change of topic, "when Garrett came back into the picture and you were telling me about him at the bar? You know, the first time I got you to try a beer?" Jane turned to the fridge and pulled out a bottle of apple juice and orange juice. She handed the orange juice to Maura as she made her way to the sofa.

"I remember," replied Maura as she tailed along behind Jane, snagging a throw blanket from one arm of the sofa to pull over her bare legs, which curled up beneath her. She offered the other end over to Jane so she could do the same. "I was twenty, and we got engaged because everything felt serious." Her tone suggested what she soon spoke aloud. "It's hard for me to even believe that now. It seems like something I might have seen in a movie. Not even a good movie, at that. I think if I saw it now, I might actually have difficulty believing in the movie's premise, because it's hard for me to imagine myself being in that mindset about him anymore."

Reaching to pull the blanket over her feet, Jane gave a small shrug. "You grew up; it happens. When you're young, everything seems more serious, you know? At the time," she looked over to the other woman to watch her face, "you were so in love you felt like you took some kind of substance." She raised an eyebrow, her voice going quieter. "Like now?"

"No," came Maura's confession without the smallest hesitation. Though she could not lift her eyes from her lap, she at least had an immediate answer was. There was no time for her to massage the truth into a form that would suit her, as she so often did. "I mean, yes, but no. Even then, in the thick of it, part of me knew that it was all a little too much of a fairy tale. It couldn't last, and I knew it, but it just felt so good that I didn't care about the consequences. And it affected me in ways… I actually dropped a class because I wanted to spend more time with him. It was like I knew that the time I spent with him was _supposed_ to be removed from the time I spent doing anything else; and if I didn't come running every time he called, Garrett would find something else to do, because I didn't matter to him in the same way he mattered to me. So, no, nothing like that at all. Neither in quality nor in intensity. There's just no comparison."

"Good because he was an ass," Jane nodded definitively at her own observation. "Do you," she sounded uncertain, worried, "ever feel like that now?" She looked down at her hands, running a thumb over the bruising and cuts of her wrist. "I mean, like the time we spend together is… temporary?" Her mouth twitched down at one corner. "You know, he really was an ass, Maura. Anyone that would expect you to give up something that makes you happy just because they weren't willing to bend their schedule a little to spend time with you doesn't deserve you. _You_," she gave a quick side-glance to the other woman, "should never be someone's second priority or last resort. You should be someone's first priority and only pick."

Once-immaculately-manicured fingers drew a lock of hair back behind Maura's ear, a nervous habit she'd picked up somewhere along the way. "You never make me feel like you've got something better to do than spend time with me," she said, giving Jane a real, though small, smile for the first time in nearly two days. "When you leave to do something else, it feels like that other thing is the nuisance, not me. That's always been true, so… no, I don't think that's temporary. We don't take breaks from our lives for each other. We're _in_ each other's lives. It _is_life, when we're together. That much is real. That much feels like something I can depend on. I just don't know whether the rest of what I feel is real, or the result of repeatedly being in dangerous situations in which you're the first person to offer me safety and comfort."

Then her hazel gaze lifted. "Then again," she said softly, "I do believe it's significant that you _are_ the one who's always there when I need someone that much."

"I'm normally the _reason_ you need someone that much." Clearing her throat, Jane glanced up toward the ceiling. "I honestly don't know why you stay around me." She closed her eyes, letting her face show the turmoil of mixed emotions she was feeling at that very moment. "Being with me puts you in danger in ways that wouldn't happen if you'd just stick with friends who aren't blue collar roughnecks."

"I like your neck," Maura said as she reached over with one hand to trail two soft fingertips upward from collarbone to the corner of Jane's jaw where it met the ear. Jane remained still, not pulling away and not saying anything as she let the woman touch her. There was no pause as Maura met the pink line where, three times now, blood had been drawn by a sharp scalpel. "It's not rough, you know, nor red, nor any of the other adjectives that are meant to be negative, but instead simply refer to people who have worked hard for everything they ever had. You know, you and your family, and everyone like them, impress me." Jane's face showed her doubt.

"You're not like my biological father," Maura explained, thumb stroking at Jane's cheek, "who's even more of a roughneck than you think you are. His work means answering to people that should be put away, and taking life and security away from some people so that others, who deserve those things just as little or less, can have more. You're not like Hoyt, whose roughness is all in the ways he hurt and humiliated people who didn't do anything at all to put themselves into his path."

Maura went on, more and more steady in both voice and demeanor. "Your roughness, if I can even call it that, is honest. Nothing's been given to you. No one ever opened any doors for you - you had to kick your own way through them." Her hand dropped, but only to pick up Jane's. "Everything you have, you earned for yourself, with your own bare hands. Small wonder they're a little rough." One kiss she placed on recently skinned knuckles as Jane's head turned to her, silently watching. "Roughness like that, like yours, is precious and beautiful beyond measure to me. Everything I've been through, I would go through again. Even including Hoyt. Even including yesterday - and don't think I've forgotten that the fact I could only do something that helped us both was because _you_ spent weeks with me at the firing range showing me how. _You_ saved us yesterday, Jane. _You_ made me brave. _You_ gave me reason to be brave. _You_ gave me the ability, and _you_ gave me something to fight for."

"If," Jane's voice cracked as she tried to speak. She cleared her throat and started again, speaking slowly. "If you didn't feel it before all of this started," she glanced down to their hands where Maura held hers, "then would you have fought so hard last night?"

"I want to believe I would," Maura began, "because like anyone else, I'd really like to believe that somewhere inside I have some germ of greatness. That I could be a hero like you. But…" Her head shook as she considered the choices she had made before their most recent captivity and torture. Seeing Hoyt slicing into Jane's throat while all she could do was sit stupidly awaiting someone else to come and save them both had been the worst few minutes of her life. Her own helplessness to do anything for herself or her best friend in all the world was what had convinced Maura to start taking self-defense classes at the gym and shooting lessons from Jane herself. The need to take those classes had not been fueled by the white-hot intensity of disgust, fear, and rage, but by a long, slow burn that was caused by sustained energy focused over a long period of time. She had one thought in mind for that entire time, and it was not the notion of being able to save a faceless stranger, nor even herself. The one she wanted to save, if things ever got so bad again that even her own savior wasn't strong enough to do the job alone, was Jane.

Deep in her psyche, knowledge blossomed, and Maura knew that she would never have learned to fight without seeing Jane threatened. She felt that no one should ever make that proud, strong, beautiful, heroic woman feel fear again. None of that feeling had been prompted by the temporary high of relief and comfort after terror. In fact, she had never even considered taking the course of action she had taken until about a week after the attack in the prison infirmary, long after the rush had left her system. It had all come from some other part of her, someplace more stable, sure, steadfast.

She had her answer, then, and without editing it at all, presented it to Jane in its purest form. "Without feeling it before, I would never have made the effort to learn how to fight."

"Thought so," Jane said quietly, eyes looking but not actually seeing their hands. "I'm with you, you know." She gave a heavy sigh, closing her eyes against her own words. "Have been for a while, probably since before you let Ma move in."

"You knew? Of course you knew," Maura said with a sheepish little laugh.

"I had a hunch," came the quiet reply.

"I've always been obvious," said Maura ruefully, "even when I think I'm not. Well, good. Thank you for showing it to me. Now I suppose - well, no, I don't suppose. I don't have any idea, actually. What do we do now? I don't think it would be a good idea to base any decision or action on what I feel right at this second."

Running her free hand through her hair, Jane finally opened her eyes to look at the doctor. "I think we should start by getting dressed and walking Jo." She glanced at the little dog that had tired of playing ball by herself and was now patiently waiting by the front door, staring up at her leash. "I don't want to go anywhere alone right now. I'm not ready to get weird stares from strangers by myself. Strength in numbers," she tried to give a smirk, but it fell more into a grimace as her face spasmed where the bruising was the worse.

"After that, maybe we can make a trip to your place so you can get some clothes because I _really_ don't want to _not_ be around you tonight, and I _really_ don't think I can deal with Ma right now. Then, we can grab takeout on the way back, actually eat something, and then sleep on it. How's that?" She slowly licked her lips as she thought about her next sentence. "I'm not saying we should _do_ anything tonight, but… I want some processing time, and you around. I'm having a selfish moment."

"Perfect," Maura agreed, not cheerily but no less sincerely for it. "I know I said I would try to sleep alone tonight, but thinking about it doesn't make me feel like a strong person standing on her own. It just makes me feel like someone missing out on something."

"Yeah, I know what you mean." Standing, Jane offered her hand to help Maura up.


	6. Chapter 6

"Ma, she's fine. No… well… no! We went by her place a couple of hours ago. She's good; we just decided to stay at my place until Monday." Jane shrugged. "It's just a couple of days, and…What? No. We're not coming over for Sunday dinner." Jane rolled her eyes, giving Maura an exasperated look as she shifted on the bed. "I know, but you try to move around a lot after having the holy hell beat out of you with a nightstick and tell me if you feel like having Sunday dinner with the family. No… no, Ma. Family doesn't make me feel better."

With a grimace, Jane quickly pulled the phone away from her ear as Angela's voice rose enough to be heard by Maura, who was quietly seated beside her in bed.

"_Jane, I can't believe you'd say that! Family is supposed to there for you when you're hurt. How can… Jane? Jane! Are you there?"_

Her daughter groaned. Flicking her finger across a few buttons, she threw the phone down between them. "Yeah, Ma, I'm here. I put you on speaker. Maura's here too."

"_Maura, are you okay? Do you need me to bring you anything? Jane's not forcing you stay over there, is she?"_

"No, Angela," Maura said in slightly louder tones than her normal speaking voice, well used to the vagaries of speaker phone. "I want to be with Jane. We have everything we need, I promise. Don't worry about us. I can look after Jane's injuries." Not shyness, but something just adjacent to it, hinted at itself in the pathologist's expression as she let herself gaze at Jane. "She's looking after me very well, too. Given that all our wounds are minor, rest really is the best thing for both of us. We just need to sleep."

"Hear that? We need to sleep, Ma," Jane cut in, voice slightly harsh. "So no calling or coming over to bug us."

"_Sometimes __I__ don__'__t__ think __you __appreciate__ me,__" _Angela said, voice just as harsh. _"__If__ you__ two __need__ anything__…"_

Maura's voice broke in. "We'll be fine, but thank you. We're grateful…"

"We'll let you know, okay? Now I'm going to go so we can rest," Jane reached out and picked up her phone. "Goodbye, Ma. Love you."

"_Bye, sweetie. Call me!"_

Rolling her eyes, Jane ended the call and tossed her phone onto her bedside table. "This is why we are staying here this weekend." She scooted back into her place, settling on her back before extending her arm out in a silent invitation.

"I rescind all previously held arguments and objections," said Maura with feeling as she lay down inside the open embrace. "Even though I think she would respond better to graciousness and reason than to irritation. Is this okay?" Her lower arm trailed 'up' towards the headboard, but the upper hand, the one that would not have been trapped beneath her body, lay on Jane's stomach; or at least, it started to do so, then flitted up again, hovering.

"Yeah," the detective chuckled as she placed her free hand on top of the hovering arm to guide it down. "I've been wanting to sleep like this for a while." She gave a small smile as she turned her head to rest her chin on Maura's forehead for a moment as she enjoyed the feel of the smaller woman curled around her. "Maura, can I ask you something?"

"Always."

"How fast are going to go with this? I mean, if I were to, say, want to kiss you, would now be a good time, or would you want to wait until your lip was a little less," she made a clicking sound with her tongue as she thought of the right word, "hurt? I mean, I realize neither of us is in the best shape right now. I look like a battered wife, and you look like you were in a bar fight. So, you know, I could see where you'd want to wait to do," she made a face as she lost her momentum, "stuff."

Not sound, but movement, signified Maura's laughter, her stomach and chest tightening with the slight effort. She propped up on her arm to look down at Jane, and took the lanky woman's hand in hers, guiding both their fingertips to illustrate her words as she spoke. "True, this side of my mouth is swollen… but not this side. I don't think I can pucker my lips well right now, either, and my right hand is a little sore, but my left isn't hurt." That same hand, in fact, was interlaced with Jane's, skimming down the far side of the undamaged side of the detective's chiseled face, jaw, and throat. "We don't have to do anything but sleep. I don't feel obligated, and neither should you. But we can, if you feel you want that. I don't mind how quickly or slowly we progress in this new aspect of our closeness, as long as we both feel right about it. And for me… if you're there, I feel right."

Jane's breathing was quickly becoming shallow as Maura spoke and moved, and she had to take a moment before she could respond to Maura's answer. "I… have no idea what the crap I'm doing, and, even though I think I've been pretty calm about all of this, in my head I'm freaking the hell out. Look, Maura," She reached up and gently caught the hand running over her face, "it's hard for me to think when you do that. Well, hard_er_ for me to think. God, woman," she shook her head. "I'm not talking about a homerun or anything, but," a blush was starting to creep up her neck, "I just… I mean, for a while now I've really wanted to… Well, I've always wonder what it'd feel like to… or, that is, how your kisses would…"

Jane could stop wondering. Maura was right; her lower lip, swollen on one side, did not pucker properly. However, there was not a thing wrong with the weight and softness of her body as she partly overlay the tall, slender brunette, mindful of the bruised ribs that she had the foresight to make sure were on the far side away from herself. There was also little complaint in the knuckles of her non-dominant left hand as it stroked back from Jane's temple and down through her rich tangle of hair while she softly whispered, "Shh" before laying a very tentative, careful kiss to quiet the uncertainty in the detective's words.

"If that's what it's like now," Jane said after pulling away to look at the other woman, "I'm in trouble when we're both better." She smiled despite the pain that jolted through her face before it fell into a suddenly serious expression. "I'm glad you're here, and you can't know how sorry I am that we're both too hurt to really move right now." Despite the seriousness in her voice and on her face, her eyes sparkled with mischief.

Maura reiterated, "We can do whatever feels good," though both the phrasing and the sentiment were different this time, more clear: whatever didn't hurt, whatever made both of them feel _right_. "I care about more than pleasure. That will still be there for us when we're both physically and mentally in better form." However, she rolled backward to lie face up, rather than continue to weigh down on Jane's battered body, though the back of her hand snuck over to lightly maintain contact with Jane's unhurt thigh. "For now, we both need rest. Good night, baby. If you wake up in pain, or scared, wake me up too."

She paused, then added, "And if you want some arnica for your bruises, _please_ let me put it on for you."

"I should say yes for that alone, but I'm exhausted, and you're right, we should get some sleep." Jane snorted. "Hey, can we at least go back to the cuddling? I liked you where you were."

"I did too," Maura said with audible regret, "but my shoulder hurts when I lie that way. Can you lie on top of me?" Once the words left her mouth, however, they seemed different from the way she'd intended, judging by the hurried way she tried to clarify her request. "Just to sleep. Just sleep, and only if the pressure wouldn't stress your rib fractures or place undue burden on your knees. I just… if it's possible without it hurting, I think I would like to sleep that way."

"Not going to happen, sweetheart," Jane said, giving a small sigh of frustration. "It hurts to lie on my back. I'm thinking lying on my side would just about kill me. We'll just have to settle for hand holding," she turned her head to look at the other woman, a smirk playing on her features. "You know, the usual."

Maura's right hand slipped over to the bedside lamp she had come to view as her own, then rested there atop the switch as she turned her head to smile back. _That__ smirk_. What wouldn't she do to see that smirk over and over, all the time, knowing that everyone else saw it as cockiness, but that she got to see it as the evidence of what only the two of them shared? Her fingers nudged the lamp switch into the off position, sending the room into abrupt blackness. The bed shifted as she edged nearer, just until their arms and legs could be in contact from shoulder to wrist to pinkie, hip to ankle, without pressing and hurting. "I love the usual."


	7. Chapter 7

(3 Months Later)

"I'm not answering it," Jane mumbled into the pillow as the sound from Maura's bedroom door grew louder. "You get it. It's your house. I know she wants us to get up and go to brunch." The knocking continued. Jane grunted, rolled over, and pulled Maura to her. "If we ignore her, maybe she'll give up and go away," she said before burying her face in the soft honey brunette hair she loved to play with.

The smaller, fairer woman snuggled backward against her lover's sleep-heated body. "Keep doing that and I won't be able to answer the door," she cautioned with a warm voice, indicative of the even warmer smile, as she snaked her spine into the shiver she was starting to feel. "Just be glad I thought to put a lock on the door." With extreme reluctance, she took a deep breath and left the confines of the tangled sheets, plucking up her robe to don on the way to open the door to greet the woman more reliable than any alarm clock.

"Good morning," she greeted Angela with a cheerful smile, slightly more energetic than she felt. Instead of letting Angela into her - their - bedroom, Maura stepped outside. "Let's go into the kitchen for some coffee. Jane's still a little bit tired."

"I bet," Angela muttered as she allowed herself to be ushered back into the kitchen. "You two spend more time in the… never mind," despite herself, the older woman blushed slightly as she caught Maura's rather smug expression of satisfaction. "I'm really sorry to wake you two up so early, but we have a problem, and I didn't know what else to do." She pulled out her phone, pushed a few buttons, and held the screen up so Maura could see the text message. "Tommy's stuck in New York."

Leaning over, Maura read the text with the brief explanation and missing vowels and punctuation, followed by an address mercifully spelled out in full. "I see. No, you were right to stir us. Your car certainly wouldn't make that drive safely. Hm. Tommy does say it's not urgent, he just wants to be home before whatever M-N-G-W-K means."

"Morning work," Angela clarified, a newly minted expert on txtspk.

"Why don't we all go and get him?" suggested Maura with a smile. "It'll be a good excuse to get out of town for the day, enjoy some pleasant scenery, and spend time together. We can be back by dinnertime, even if we stop to take a meal or do a little shopping."

"I told you I wasn't voluntarily going shopping," Jane grumbled as she shuffled passed the other two women and to the coffee pot. "What happened this time?"

"Tommy's stuck in New York," Angela said as she shooed her daughter away from the coffee pot and started making a pot herself. "His friend, Jimmy…"

"The slacker?" Jane said through a yawn. "Cold," she muttered as she wrapped her arms around herself and stood aside to watch the coffee being made.

"Be nice," her mother warned. "Anyway, his car broke down last night, and they can't get it going. You know he's got to be on time tomorrow. He just started! We have to go get him."

"Of course we do. Why can't Frankie go get him, or Pop for that matter? I mean, this is my and Maura's first day off in two weeks." the tall brunette rolled her eyes.

"You know how I feel about talking about your father," Angela scolded as she pulled down mugs. "Frankie's working today. He took up a shift with Korsak to get in 'detective practice', whatever that means."

With sigh, Jane looked to her girlfriend, "And you want to go shopping since we just happen to be going past a few of your favorite boutiques, right?"

"You don't have to try on anything unless you see something you like," Maura pleaded, eyes wide. "No more than an hour, and when it's over I'll get you anything you want for lunch. Please? It's just one day, and we have tomorrow and the day after because of all the overtime we've been working, so we can stay in bed all day." As Angela started waving her hands and chanting about how she wasn't listening, Maura added, "And catch up on our sleep. And I'll bring you breakfast in bed tomorrow, just the way you like it, with the strawberries carved into flowers and the little…"

"Okay! Alright!" Jane shushed the babbling doctor with a kiss. "Like I was going to tell you no," she made a '_pfft__'_ sound before turning back to the coffee pot. "As soon as the coffee's ready and I get a cup, we can go. I'm going to hit the shower."

"Whatever you're about to say, Maura, can you wait until you're both back in the bedroom?" Angela cut off the honey brunette, who was clearly about to make sordid comment. "We all know. We all love you, but I honestly don't want to know about my daughter's sex life."

Jane's eyebrows flew up, blush instantly covering her face. "Ma!"

"What? Oh please, Janie, it's not like I don't know what's going on when the door is closed. _Dead_ people know what's going on when the door is closed," Angela countered with slight accusation in her voice.

"Oh my god," her daughter muttered, pinching the bridge of her nose with forefinger and thumb. "It's too early in the morning for this. I'm taking a shower. Maura, you call Frankie and tell him what's up in case something happens. Ma," Jane shook her head at her mother's expectant look, "I got nothing." Taking in a deep breath, the detective turned and walked back to the master bedroom.

Having made her honest and valiant attempt to restrain her laughter at the effects she'd had without even saying a word, Maura finally gave in just before Jane closed the door to the master bedroom behind herself. "I wasn't going to share details. I wasn't! I'd never do that to Jane." Her voice lowered, once she'd leaned back for a view of the hallway, making sure that the door was closed, before continuing. "Though, just between us, I don't think you're nearly as embarrassed about this as she is. I'll never give detail, but I honestly think that you'd be proud to know that your daughter is… healthy, and happy, in that area of her life. I know I will be. I mean, if I have a dau-"

She stopped. The magic word had been halfway out of her mouth, the word that would turn this upcoming road trip into either a dream or a nightmare.

"I was hoping for a grandson," Angela commented dryly as she poured the coffee. "I think Jane would handle a boy better than a girl to start off. Maybe you two can give me a granddaughter as your second child?" She glanced up from pouring. "I just assumed you'd adopt?"

Another furtive glance towards the bedroom, and Maura quickly swept her doctored coffee cup into both hands to warm them, nodding towards the sofa in invitation as she, too, headed that way. "We haven't actually broached the subject," she admitted, "and I don't know that I should bring it up first. Children are the biggest commitment anyone could make, as you know so well. There are steps. Lots of steps. There's marriage, cohabitation, figuring out both of our goals and visions for the future each of us wants to have. Deciding whether we really do want to share that future. Jane still _asks_ when she wants to bring over something for Joe Friday, in case I'll think it clashes with the décor; she doesn't yet think of this as her home. Adoption, in-vitro fertilization, donors, and all of that… it's… it's a lot, especially when I don't even know if she's going to say yes."

"She'll say yes," Angela assured as she settled on the sofa. "You know, when Jane told me about you two, I asked her if she was sure, and the look she gave me," the older women smiled warmly before taking a sip of her coffee. "Trust me, sweetie, Jane's committed. The last time I saw that look on her face was when I asked her if she was sure she wanted to be a police officer. You see where _that_ got me?" She chuckled. "I know Jane says that I nag at her about getting married and having children, but I really just want her to be happy. When you two figure it out, I'm sure you'll get around to settling and having a family. Just don't wait too long. I want to be young enough to still play with my grandchildren, okay?" She winked at the younger woman.

"In that case," Maura said in a low whisper, leaning in as she heard the sounds of the door opening, "see if you can keep Jane busy while we're shopping in New York. I don't want her to know what store we're walking into until we're actually in it. Tiffany's sells things besides pretty earrings, you know."

Angela's eyes light up. "Maura! I can't believe… oh, this is so exciting…"

"What is?" Jane asked as she glanced at the women on the sofa before heading to the waiting coffee. "What are you two planning, and should I be worried?"

"Maura's going to show me a bunch of new places to shop that I've never been in before. Isn't that exciting?" her mother offered by way of explanation.

"Yeah, it's great," the lanky woman replied, pouring sugar into her mug. "I'm getting pizza for lunch, right?"

Maura slid Angela a secretive wink, then schooled her features as she answered, "Anything you want, baby. I promised. And I also remember promising you wouldn't have to try on anything you don't want to try on. That's a promise I'll be happy to keep. Okay, now, you two talk while I go get dr- no. On second thought, Angela, would you be willing to make a light breakfast, and Jane, could you walk Joe Friday?" She adored Jane's mother, but the woman would not be able to keep silent about her knew slice of information for love, money, world peace, or the hope of a big wedding followed by an army of tiny Rizzolis.

"Yeah, sure." Coffee mug in hand, Jane headed to the door. "Come on, Jo. Let's go annoy Mrs. Whitaker."

Angela gave Maura a hard look. "I'll make something quick," she offered as she stood to head for the kitchen.

"I want sausage," Jane called out from her place by the front door as she tried to leash a squirming Jo. At Maura's look of disapproval, Jane retracted. "No I don't. I want eggs." With that and an eye roll dog and owner were out the door.

"I wonder if she hears herself sometimes?" Angela commented with sly humor as she began to pull breakfast items from the fridge.

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